Megaman Zero: The Parody
by LazerTH
Summary: My parody of the first Megaman Zero video game, from beginning to end. It's like Madness Attacking The Head Slowly, except in the FUTURE!
1. Prologue

_Run._

She'd been running ever since she learnt how. This situation was no different, except for one important difference: if they didn't find _him, _they would all die.

The reploid soldiers in green kept a tight circle around her, both to guard her from bullets and pick her up if she fell. The forest was dark, but to Pantheons – Mechaniloids modeled after Megaman X – it was bright as day. Only the lights of the compound guided Ciel's path. Things were getting worse, though, as a ponderous roar far behind them signaled the arrival of Megaman X's latest toy: the Golems. Giant, yellow, hovering fortresses of metal equipped with the latest in Maverick-killing technology. Some reploid soldiers stayed to delay them while the rest ran with Ciel, their human leader, inside the laboratory.

The place was a mess. It had been abandoned after the Elf Wars destroyed it and what it was built around – Zero's stasis capsule. Sure, the reploid who fought beside Megaman X a century ago was the stuff of legend, but considering how poorly the war went against Neo Arcadia, a legend was the only hope left for the Resistance. An incomplete battle report from the Elf Wars, fragmented data from ancient databases and ever-circulating rumours were the last chances they had left.

The energy weapons of the Golems cut a bloody swathe through the reploid soldiers. They thundered over the fresh corpses to join the Pantheons in the chase.

Getting closer, now. Run through the multiple access hatches. Passy, the fairylike Cyber Elf zooming beside Ciel, picked up huge energy readings behind the giant containment door they ran into. She was an elite hacker elf, and was sensitive to such things.

"Allow me, Miss Ciel!"

Milan set the explosives and the door blew inward. Inside were the remains of a stasis capsule over thirty feet tall and ten feet wide. Thick cables ran from the ceiling to the kneeling, bent figure of the one they had sought and died for.

Megaman Zero.


	2. Resurrection

Like everything else here, he was a mess. He was missing an arm and his armour was cracked in places. Even the forcefield that Milan ran into had not spared him. He was a broken legend.

"How are we going to get past that shielding?" Milan wondered. With a shout, the guard at the entrance died. Pantheons filed into the room, firing. Milan shoved Ciel behind him, taking three energy bolts to the chest. He opened fire, bullets ricocheting harmlessly off their pursuers.

"We're cornered! We have to evacuate!" Milan insisted, although they had no avenues of escape left to them.

"But Zero…!"

Three shots were fired. A shower of circulatory fluid and her last bodyguard was no more.

"Milan!" Ciel screamed. The rogue human scientist fell to her knees beside his body. Red had stained her bright blonde hair.

"…"

Passy, flitting nervously, considered her mistress in distress. The Pantheons, their cannons smoking, were advancing, their luminous cyclopean eyes bringing death ever nearer.

"Ciel!" Passy cried.

"………"

"Ciel!!"

"…………………"

"GOD DAMN IT WOMAN!"

"What?" Ciel moaned.

"I can break through the barrier!"

"Who's stopping you?"

"You have to charge me!"

"Wha?"

"Just stick out your hand before those Pantheons make you very dead!"

Ciel obeyed, and Passy generated enough power to not only break the forcefield around Zero but to resurrect him in perfect condition. Perhaps it was her own power enhancing his auto-repair function, or perhaps she had hacked into and activated the life-support cables attached to him – who knew? The results were stupendous.

"Whoa. I thought Passy was only good for a mascot!"

Zero opened his eyes, and his first word after one hundred years of stasis was uttered:

"Coooooffeeeeeee….."

"Zero!"

He blinked.

"Huh?"

A girl with a blonde ponytail, like his, and huge blue eyes, like his, was clutching his hand. They looked like twins, except he was male, reploid, and covered in bright red armour.

"Please… help me," she whimpered.

Basic programming took over. To summarize the infinitely complex chains of code, here are the conclusions at which he arrived:

NEW FRIEND FOUND. FRIEND WANTS PEACE. MUST FIGHT FOR PEACE. PEACE BRINGS PLEASURE TO FRIEND. PLEASURE IS ALL. FIGHTING IS ALL. MUST FIGHT TO BRING PLEASURE TO FRIEND.

Zero dropped from his erect posture and pried the heavy gray handgun from Milan's hand. He shrugged. Maybe he was a combat-class model.

"Okie dokie," he acknowledged.

"Mission Start!"

"What?"  
"Just shoot those Pantheons!"

"Hey! Uh, they look familiar."

"SHOOT THEM!"

"Okay, just stop yelling! Come to think of it, you remind me of someone…"

But the Pantheons were not attacking at all. In fact, they were running back and forth, much like beheaded chickens. Zero scratched his helmet.

"Um. I see green dead guys. How were they killed?"

"Those Pantheons shot them."

"The same Pantheons doing absolutely nothing right now."

"Yes."

"Got it."

Zero dispatched them with three shots apiece. Killing was more instinctive than thinking, more like breathing.

"Okay, whatever they reminded me of did _not _fall apart after three hits."

"Good. Let's keep going."

"Why?"

"Because I'm in danger!"

Zero cocked his handgun. Fighting is all.

"Not while I'm here."

"Well then, take me back home."

"How?"

Ciel smacked her forehead.

"Look, just keep going right until we find the exit, okay?"

"Okie dokie. I still don't know who you are or what the hell I'm doing here, but let's carry on."

Zero killed… spiders… later on in the stage, as well as Pantheons with shock sticks. Sure enough, they arrived at a dead end. While Ciel went forward to inspect the wall, Zero holstered his Z-Buster. Hey, his first weapon had to have a name, and it was better than 'Dick Justice'.

"Oh hey, I've only been around for a minute, but I'm way more powerful than those guys back there. Were your people killed by them? They must suck."

Ciel flew to their defense with shock and outrage.

"They were brave soldiers!"

"Who were killed by barely functioning zombies."

"You're not invincible, you know!"

"I've just cleared an entire area without damaging myself or injuring you."

Ciel tilted her head to one side to process this.

"…Yeah. Maybe I _should _keep you close, y'know, just to be safe…"

As she said this, the platform beneath her began to crumble. First Pantheons, then Golems, and now the _ground _was conspiring against her?

"Ahh!"

Zero dashed forward to grab her. The fall was over one hundred feet, but he landed without so much as a grunt. Ciel found her feet, wobbling a bit.

"…Thank you. That's the second time today."

He saluted.

"Just doing my duty, ma'am."

"My name's Ciel. I'm a scientist. And you're Zero."

"I don't like that name; it makes me sound like a loser. How about One? _The _One."

"But the databanks said…"

"Saviour of maidens in distress, _the _One."

"For a legend, you're a real fathead, _Zero_."

"It's called hibernation sickness, my dear, so grin and bear it."

Ciel sighed and led the way. There was more of that green slush on the floor leaking from broken pipes, some high-backed chairs with moss growing on them and dusty computer terminals.

"There should be a Trans Server around here where we can teleport back to base. I guess this is the laboratory where they monitored you. In case you didn't notice, you were behind several containment doors, meaning you're very important."

"Considering the mess you woke me up in, I beg to differ."

"The Elf Wars destroyed this facility," she explained as they walked, "and you. The only reason you were not in pieces was because of that massive forcefield around you. My Cyber Elf, Passy, broke through the shield, revived and restored you."

"That would explain my screensaver."

"What?"

"Just before I opened my eyes, there was this little fairy flitting back and forth, telling me to wake up."

Ciel smiled.

"She will always be a part of you."

"Oh, great, now I'm part fairy," Zero smirked, "C'mon, let's get out of here."

Ciel's face fell.

"Can't."

Debris had choked the rest of the hallway.

"Shall we go back?"

Zero's advanced aural sensors heard the hum of hover engines before she did.

"Stay back!"

A giant metal fist burst through the debris to snatch the girl off the ground, withdrawing into the room beyond. Zero followed her screams to find a Golem holding her captive.

"Ciel!"

Despite terror, she thought of her saviour first.

"Run, Zero! Buster shots won't harm this thing…"

Zero whipped out his gun.

"Like hell it won't!"

Without thinking he kicked off the wall and got a headshot in. The Golem, surprised at its vulnerability, counterattacked with an energy beam that collapsed part of the ceiling. Zero dashed almost underneath the behemoth to avoid the falling blocks, and used them as platforms to get in more headshots.

"They always have a weakness!" he informed Ciel, kicking off the wall again to avoid more energy beams. As she watched him evade attacks that had killed her friends several times over, she wondered… was combat restoring his memory? He seemed to be moving faster, more sure of himself, ruthlessly efficient. Even so, his shots were not having much effect. The Golem's head was only beginning to be scorched.

"Rats!"

"Ahhh! I don't like rats!"

"Not rodents, Ciel! This monster isn't going down as fast as it should!"

In response to his frustration, the computer screen behind them flickered. Something resembling the model of an atom, with rainbow rings crisscrossing a blue core, appeared onscreen. Zero noticed its lurid presence.

"Huh?"

A small gray cylinder popped out of a compartment on the console. Then, a sizzling green beam emanated from its hilt, piercing the hard metallic ground at Zero's feet.

"…USE THIS… ZERO…"

Yet another person… or thing… that knew the name he had forgotten.

"Who are you!?" Zero demanded.

"HURRY… YOU HAVE TO… SAVE HER…" the blue core ordered, "DON'T WASTE TIME…"

Zero felt compelled. That voice… he connected it to the familiarity he felt when he looked at the Pantheons. He pulled the sword, no, the _Z Saber, _out of the ground, like King Arthur drawing Excalibur from Merlin's rock.

And it was the most natural thing in the world for him to rebound off the wall and behead the Golem with one sweeping slash.

Ciel fell from lifeless metal fingers. Zero used his body to shield her from the explosion.

"Mission… accomplished…" Ciel coughed in the smoke, "I can't believe it."

"That I was able to destroy that thing?"

"No… that a Cyber Elf gave you that sword…"  
"Cyber Elf? I don't think that was just any old fairy."

"Even so, you _must _be the legendary reploid, Zero. That weapon is associated with him."

Zero, if that was who he was, frowned.

"What if I'm not?"

"You killed a Golem _and _you treat that saber like an extension of your arm."

Zero stared into the shimmering green blade of his weapon. It was a triangular arrow, leaving a neon trail when it moved. It felt good in his hand, unlike that gun which was clunky and awkward in comparison. Memory stirred, settled, and slept. He couldn't get a fix on what he was feeling.

"Ugh… I can't remember…"

"You still have hibernation sickess. Let's get you back to base before more enemies arrive."

He complied, following her through the hatch.


	3. Maverick

As Ciel showed him the command centre and its personnel, Zero spread his hands and sang, "What a dump!"

"Hey! We're at war! Have some respect!"

"It's been trashed! Wasted!"

"This is another one of those bases destroyed during the Elf War! We barely have an operating shield system and Trans Server!"

"So how do you fight against… hey, what _are _you fighting for?"

"Oh! That. We're only fighting against Megaman X and his legions of Pantheons, that's all."

_A blue helmet, the red forehead gem cracked._

"Zero? Are you okay?"

"Zuh?"

"Your eyes became distant."

"That name sounds familiar."

"It should be. You fought by his side, a hundred years ago. But now he's trying to retire us all."

"Why would X…" Zero began, but then that annoying lapse of memory got in the way. He sighed, hanging his head.

"What am I fighting for?"

"Freedom," Ciel summarized, "I'll tell you everything later, but we're in a pinch right now, and we have no time left."

Zero shrugged.

"Considering you have a handful of guards, a kid with a stuffed animal, a fat guy, a kooky old man and a mad scientist, you probably do need help."

Ciel spread her palms open.

"We have you now! You are everything we need."

"But I mean nothing to you and you don't know why."

"What?"

"Sorry, Freudian slip."

"I have a mission for you…"

"First!" Zero interrupted, pointing at the happy fairy buzzing around his head, "What is _that?"_

"Oh, that's one of the cyber elves you rescued while you were rescuing me. The rest are stored in your memory."

Zero inclined his head for a moment, processing his storage commands. The fairy flew into his head, disappearing in sparkles. Zero grimaced as she entered his database catalogue.

"_Nuppie? _Did a second grader come up with that name?"

"Actually, Alouette named them."

"The kid with the stuffed animal?"

Ciel shrugged and smiled.

"Hey, she lost everything, you know? So I let her name the elves. She thinks of them as her children."

"But where did Cyber Elves come from?"

"They're electronic entities. Maybe they came from ghosts in the shell…"

"The anime?"

Of all the things to remember, that _had_ to be one of them. Ciel sighed.

"No. It's a theory that program code will develop consciousness over time."

"Maybe they're the souls of reploids," Zero postulated.

"Or maybe…" Ciel pondered. Zero raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe?"

"Just maybe… they're _magic."_

Zero burst into laughter.

"You silly little girl."

Ciel pouted.

"Hey! I'm a scientist! With a PhD!"

"Sure. What's this mission?"

"Our comrade was captured and is being processed at the disposal centre."

"You want me to save him too?"

Hope bloomed in those wide blue eyes.

"Yes, please! We have so few allies left to us!"

Zero was a sucker for puppy eyes.

"I'm on my way."

888

"_The disposal centre is just ahead of you."_

"Whoa! A voice in my head. I _know _that reminds of someone, I just can't remember!"

"_I know it's been a long sleep, but please focus on the mission at hand."_

"That's just what… whoever… would have said, too!"

"_Look, are you going to save my friends from certain crushing spiky death or not?"_

"Yeah, I'm going."

Spike balls and Pantheons that fell apart at a single swipe of his Z Saber were the only resistance he encountered. A jetpack Pantheon appeared once or twice, but Zero could perform aerial attacks too.

"Geez. I have this feeling that my enemies were more of a challenge than this!"

"_Be glad the current ones aren't."_

"I understand the need for mass production when you're trying to rule the world with an evil robot army, but come _on! _I'm not even trying that hard!"

"_Zero, the issue here isn't enemies, it's time, and _they _are running out of it!"_

"Oh, right."

Running through the rest of the stage without a smidgen of effort, Zero encountered a garage door. Well, it _looked_ like a garage door, but it was of very thick construction and sealed with interlocking bars.

"_Through the shutter, our allies are being held."_

"That's it? It's like something is missing…"

"_The reason we sent you on this mission is because of the boss of this area."_

"Oh! That's it, yeah. I knew there was _something _bad behind one of these garage door thingies!"

Feeling more secure about his place in the world, Zero entered the disposal centre. As expected, there was the boss, a combat-class reploid beast.

"I am Aztec Falcon," the boss introduced himself, "Harpuia sent me here to clean up the trash. That includes you!"

"What razor wit," Zero snorted, "Let's see if my Z Saber is sharper!"

"Um… help?" squeaked the reploid soldier in green, trapped with some mechaniloids beneath the spiked compactor. Ignoring them, Zero and Falcon flew at each other above. Saber and galvanic claws smashed together, crackling as the warriors pushed against each other.

"Maverick trash!" Falcon shrieked. Zero's eyes widened.

"Maverick…"

_A skull with purple scars over its burning red sockets._

"NO!"

Zero kicked Aztec Falcon against the wall, dashed and jammed the Z Saber through the boss' fusion core. His dark eyes blazed green.

"I AM NO MAVERICK!"

The reploid and mechaniloids cowered as an explosion ripped apart the compactor. A god clad in red armour fell from the sky and walked among them, his dark eyes showing concern.

"Are you all right?"

The mechaniloids beeped affirmative. The reploid soldier's knees were shaking.

"Ah… thank you. I thought no one was coming to save us."

"Let's go back to base," Zero invited, "Dr. Ciel will find work for your new friends."

"O RLY?" the mechaniloids chirped.

"YA RLY!" Zero replied in their native tongue.

"NO WAI!" the mechaniloids seemed to faint from happiness.

"YES WAI!" Zero laughed.

"ZOMG!" the mechaniloids cried, breaking into dance. The reploid soldier blinked and uttered, "WTF?"


	4. HunterGatherer

"Well done!" Ciel gushed, "You ARE the legendary reploid, Zero!"

Zero looked askance at her.

"First of all. If you had energy weapons – and I'm sure your guards outside do – you could have destroyed most of the enemies if you put one guy in front with a shield or Cyber Elf to block shots. For crying out loud, all the Pantheons fell apart with _one_ saber slash! As for the rolling spike balls, just jump over them!"

"But only you can jump!"

Zero did a double-take.

"Reploids can't jump?"

"No! All they learnt was how to run and shoot!"

"O…kay then. Anyway, those regenerating towers would fall apart with one detonation pack, and I _know _you have some, because when I woke up in that lab, the door you came in through was still smoking. Finally, you could bring some planks along to cross the spike pits."

"But the boss of the area, Zero! We couldn't handle him!" Ciel protested.

"You don't know your own strength, do you? Come on, _where_ was the boss standing? Ciel, from _here _you could have hacked the trash compactor to move _in reverse! _He'd have been crushed flat long before your troops arrived!"

Ciel frowned and looked away.

"You… you're right. I'm so sorry for putting you through all that."

Ah, but she was still human. Zero patted her on the shoulder.

"There, there, we all panic and doubt ourselves."

"But Zero, what would have taken all our soldiers, you did solo!"

"I know. But that doesn't mean you're weak. There is strength in numbers," he cracked a wry grin, "But Neo Arcadia's numbers far exceed yours. So I'll thin the herds for you."

"…Thank you. You have no idea how much you mean to m… to us."

"Oh, what's this thing?"

Zero showed her a microchip marked by a lightning bolt.

"That's the Thunder Chip," Ciel explained, "Aztec Falcon incorporated it into his systems to use his electric attacks. Now you can do the same with your weapons when you charge them."

"Oh? But there's only one chip. How will I put it in both?"

"It's installed in your memory core."

"But how will my weapons generate electricity from something in my head?"

"They… you… oh, how should I know?"

"You probably made the thing."

"Yes, but that doesn't make me an expert."

"…"

"Questions?"

"One. What do I do with Nuppie? I figured out the small 'uns, but she says she's not fully grown."

"Oh! You have to feed energy crystals to big Cyber Elves."

"Can I borrow some of yours? You have a factory stuffed with them upstairs."

"We need those!"

"Ciel, there are _hundreds _of containers up there, with millions of crystals! You have, what, twenty people, including those that are captured?"

"We'll need them when we leave this place. Energy doesn't generate itself, you know! That's why I'm trying to find an alternate energy source."

"That's fine, but I still need crystals for Nuppie."  
"Not just her, actually. I recorded the number of big Cyber Elves that were captured by Neo Arcadia. All in all, you'll need 22,800 crystals."

Zero smacked his forehead.

"_WHAT?"_

"Those are the numbers."

"I barely got a hundred on the last mission, and I can only hold one less than ten thousand!"

"So store them here until you have enough."

"Oi geez. I'll be back in about an hour. Can you spare the time?"

"We have a day or so for the most, but where are you going?"

"To the underground lab. Those spider nests kept generating little spiders, and where there's cannon fodder, there's crystals."

888

Zero went back and forth between the lab and factory three times within three hours. He brought back one less than ten thousand each visit.  
"Whoa, Zero! Overkill!" Ciel gaped, "That's…"

"Too many. But it was easy. I just stood in front the spider nests and slashed them when they came out. Each batch littered the place with small crystals."

"Your arms didn't get tired?"  
"Ciel, I'm a _reploid. _I'm over a hundred years old and I look _your_ age."

"Point taken. Still, you have a few thousand more than you need…"

"I've learnt not to leave things to chance."

"So can we use them?" she smiled.

"Absolutely not. I busted my ass collecting them…"

"You said it was easy!"

"I got bored! But it's necessary. Anyway…"

He summoned Nuppie and fed her 750 crystals. She glowed, and grew larger, her physical features maturing.

"Thanks for feeding me, Zero!" she chirruped.

"Good. Now, what can you do?"

"I'll give you more life energy!"

"Okie dokie."

He snatched the fairy out of the air and bit her head off, program code spewing everywhere. Two things happened at that moment. First, Ciel screamed, and fainted. Secondly, a soldier in green rushed into the room and demanded to know what had happened. Zero, still chewing, shrugged.

888

If the first mission was simple, the second mission was the epitome of ease.

"_Zero!" _Ciel messaged him the first time he used it, _"Are you doing what I think you are?"_

"Yes ma'am!"

He was charging his Z-Saber. If it had been destructive before, now it was devastating. There was not one enemy for the length of the train that withstood a good blast and a follow-up slash.

"HA!"

Zero ripped apart a jetpack Pantheon in midair with the huge energy burst. The technique had come to him during his crystal collecting. Zero thought it would feel familiar, just like the three-hit combo and midair spin techniques, but the first time he gathered energy in the blade and that all-consuming wave annihilated the spider nest, it felt completely new.

"I don't know where it came from, but it kicks ass right out the door!"

"_Don't forget you have to save Totten! Don't use that dangerous attack near her!"_

"Yeah, yeah."

"_And your rank has been degraded from "S" to "A" for killing Nuppie!"_

"WHAT?" Zero yelled with great indignation, "Since when does using something I _rescued _and _raised _lower my rank?"

"_There are so few Cyber Elves left, Zero! You can't just go killing them off!"_

Zero stopped right there.

"Listen to me, woman. I am the _best _reason for using a Cyber Elf! What else are you going to use them for, pets? Didn't you _use _your Cyber Elf to resurrect me? Does that mean you're an "A" rank, too?"

"…"

"I thought so. Besides, I don't give a damn about my rank, but I _do _need to be well-fed to maintain my fighting prowess and spirit!" he declared, resuming his run along the train.

"_But you never ate during the Maverick Wars!"_

"Well then, I've got a hundred years or so to catch up on."

"_Unless you have an "S" rank, you'll never get the Cyber Elf in my room!"_

"I took that elf when you weren't looking, actually. Also, you have granny underwear. Try something lacier."

There was an interminable silence while Ciel went through the motions of apoplexy.

"_Oh my God! I never gave you permission to…"_

"Woman, you just said all I needed was an "S" rank to access your bedroom. Do you have any idea how slutty that sounds?" he chided, landing before the garage door, "If you're going to have that attitude, at least look through some Victoria's Secret catalogues before you let a _real _man in."

"_Good CHRIST! I never knew a legend could be so _DIRTY!_" _she shrieked, and cut the comlink. Zero sighed and shrugged.

"Give some constructive criticism to a woman and she goes mental. Besides, I have no ass. Go figure…"


	5. Pogo

Upon Zero's return to base with Totten, the biggest and best hacker elf, Ciel took the opportunity to counterattack him.

"There's nothing wrong with granny underwear! It's a lot more comfortable than thongy lacey things!"

"Oh, so _that's _why those redheads on guard duty always look so pissed. I'll have to get their numbers."

Ciel turned pinker than usual. Zero walked over to her bedroom door, stuck out his hand, and the contraption swooshed open. He sent an accusing stare at the scientist.

"Guess who lets "A" ranks into her room as well?"

Ciel turned from pink to red, looking away. Meanwhile, Zero inclined his head to access Totten's memory file.

"What do you do, little guy?"

"_I'm a girl!" _said the voice in his head, _"I help you in the damage zone."_

"What does that mean? Invincibility? Less damage?"

"_No, there are other cyber elves for those things. I get rid of all the spikes you come across."_

"Whoa! Really? I'm going to raise you right away!"

"_What! I heard what you did to Nuppie from the other cyber elves in here!"_

"So? That's your reason for existing!"

"_Give me to Ciel!"_

"Ciel's already a hacker! She doesn't need help! Look, take these energy crystals…"

Of the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine crystals he carried on his person (don't ask _where; _nobody really knows) he gave three thousand five hundred to Totten, watching her grow from a nerd with glasses to a witch with an X marking on her face.

"_Oh, no! He's going to bite my head off!" _squealed Totten, freeing herself from Zero's databank parameters in a desperate bid to fly off.

"Hey! Come back here!"

He lunged and grabbed the witch-elf. Ciel shrieked.

"Hacker elves don't work that way!"

"What?" Zero grumbled, "But my health bar increased after I ate Nuppie!"

"_Ahhh! Save me!" _Totten mewled, fluttering in futility.

"She must be set free to hack into the enemy's trap systems! You don't _eat _her!"

"Bah! Why must you always be right?"

Zero tossed Totten away. The world became distorted for a few seconds, and then resumed focus. Totten disappeared in a blue shower of sparkles. Zero blinked.

"What was that?"

"She died doing her duty," was Ciel's sour reply, "I don't appreciate your cyber-elf abuse. You need therapy."

"Didn't I tell you…?"  
"I know what you said! But cyber-elves can be used in non-selfish ways, you know! Nuppie could have been used to heal all our injured reploids while Totten could have helped me crack the security system of Neo Arcadia's Trans Server!"

"What good would that have done?"

"X is at Neo Arcadia's core!" Ciel flung up her hands in despair, "How are we going to get to him if not by Trans Server? Neo Arcadia is surrounded by a Pantheon army!"

"Don't worry, Ciel, something will come up," Zero assured her, "For now, I have more missions, don't I?"

Ciel shook her head.

"You're impossible. But there _is _some data stored where we first met…"

888

Return to that dingy, old place. Zero knew he was older than this building. It had been built ­_around _him, to protect him, or… to protect others from him. For an ancient machine, he possessed _too much_ power. Wasn't technology supposed to _advance? _Why were the contemporary machines so shoddy and ill-formed? And then there was his memory – his identity was gone.

Why? What event in his past could merit identity erasure? Had he been a tyrant, like this Megaman X? Ciel _did _say he had fought with X, but this business of X going to the dark side just didn't sit well with Zero.

"Why were you built?" Zero asked the ancient, ruined computers, sparing a glance at the monitor where the blue core had appeared and given him his Z-Saber. That core had expected him.

"I'm so confused, but I have focus," Zero resigned himself to that fact, and kicked up the pit from whence he and Ciel had fallen earlier.

"Whoa! Where did these come from?"

Rotating electrical traps blocked the way. Shooting them and slashing didn't work, so he was forced to time his jumps.

"You'd think X would make _all _his troops with the same metal as those traps," Zero sneered, climbing from the pit. More of those sadistic traps, shock stick Pantheons, floating bombs and spiders greeted him, but there was something else: gun turrets that crawled along the ceiling and shot not two, not three, but _one bullet at a time! _At the end of the stage, where he was born, he found a giant anthropomorphic elephant in reploid form.

"My name is Maha Ganeshariff. I am the data collector for Neo Arcadia!"

"Genius!" Zero exclaimed, "I would never think of lumbering zombies and retarded gun turrets to guard data!"

"If you want the data I downloaded here, you'll have to destroy me!"

"You know what, elephant man? You don't deserve my personal attention. I'll let this odd anime character from 4chan handle it."

"What are you…"

Dio Brando, screaming in Japanese, flew through the door to smash Maha Ganeshariff into the floor with a bright yellow steamroller. After punching the steamroller into the floor (as if killing the boss once wasn't enough) he stood on top the steamroller and roared with primal fury, "WRYYYYYYY!"

Brando then picked up his steamroller and left, presumably to find a bar. Zero touched the mush that was the boss and acquired the relevant data. Just then, the ceiling began to fall in sections, one at a time, edging nearer to where Zero stood.

"Oh, wow. A timed self-destruct sequence. When will they ever learn to do it all at once?"

Zero didn't even need to try that hard. Blast doors closed in his face, but he ripped through them with charged blows, navigating the broken terrain without incident.

"No enemies to stand in my way? I guess they acquired common sense and fled."

He landed at the bottom of the pit.

"_Zero! Zero! Are you all right?"_

"Yes."

"_Cerveau can decrypt the data you found! Return to base!"_

"You say that like I have somewhere else to go."

888

Upon return to base he made a beeline to the mad scientist and was rewarded with the Triple Rod.

"You can attack in eight directions with this, even downwards!"

Zero jumped, aimed downwards with the rod, and bounced off the floor with the energy blade. He grinned.

"Look! I can pogo!" Zero demonstrated this by bouncing off all the equipment in the lab, forcing Cerveau to flee before the place exploded.

"Ahhh! My life's work!" the Frenchman screeched.

"It's okay, I'm still alive!" Zero sang, bouncing onto the elevator and breaking it in two.

"Oopsie!"

Cerveau held his head and wailed.

"Arrrgghhhh!"

888

"Zero!"

"What?"

"Get down from there!"

Zero had been enjoying himself immensely with the Triple Rod. He could jam the thing into walls and hang off it, including the ceiling.

"But I'm as free as a monkey!"

"You look like one! Get down!" Ciel ordered. Zero unstuck the rod from the ceiling and landed. The command centre was pockmarked all over.

"Look at what you did! Cerveau has to repair everything now!"

"_Aaaarrrghhhh!"_ was the mad scientist's howl all the way at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

"He has issues," Zero shrugged. Ciel smacked her forehead.

"Never use that in the base again!"

"But…"

"Just use it during your missions! That's what it was MADE for!'

"But I don't wanna!" he whined.

"That's too bad. Look, I have another mission for you!"

"Jesus, woman, when will it end? Send me to Neo Arcadia!"

"Do you want to be killed? I told you there's an army!"

Zero folded his arms.

"Psh. Not like it's stopped me before."

"Don't get ahead of yourself. Start small, at least?"

Zero sighed.

"Fine. I'm already the walking dead. What's the worst that could happen?"


	6. Harpuia

A combat class model like himself was the worst that could happen. Walking past the recently mangled bodies of green soldiers, he saw another green soldier, except brighter in colour, taller, slender, and covered in proper armour. He/she/it was looking mighty pissed at the Resistance member quivering in his boots.

"Get out of here," Zero dismissed Colbor, "Run back home to mommy."

"Z-Zero! I'm saved!"

"Quit yapping. I heard what you said. Don't need me to infiltrate the enemy base, eh?"

"I'm s-sorry!" Colbor bawled as he retreated. Zero sighed, holding up his palms in a devil-may-care posture.

"I apologize. They're such children."

"Zero! So, you _do _exist. I've heard so much about you!"

"What? Did they use my body in porno flicks?"

"You bastard, why did you join those Mavericks?"

A moment of rage passed through Zero's eyes and was gone.

"A better question is, why kill off innocent reploids?"

"As decreed by Master X, inferior reploids must be eliminated to conserve energy."

"So it's an energy crisis that caused this?"

"Enough talk! My name is Sage Harpuia, Guardian of Master X and Sky General!"

"Blah, blah, blah. I fight all the time. Talking's rare."

Twin energy blades emerged from Harpuia's forearms.

"But so much can be said in battle!"

Zero stuck his Z-Saber in the ground.

"You know what? I'll play this by ear."

"You fool!" Harpuia cried, and took flight. He swooped down on Zero, who just jumped over the Guardian and kicked him between the wings.

"Real smooth, fly boy."

"Insolent Maverick!"

Harpuia got up and slashed forward, sending energy beams from his twin blades. Zero dashed under one, hopped over the second, and, using the momentum of his jump, landed a left hook that forced Harpuia to one knee. Plastic flaked off dented metal. Without hesitation, the red warrior grabbed one of the green Guardian's wings, flipped him bodily over his shoulder and smashed him into the ground, wrenching said wing free in the process.

"And now, you can't fly," Zero announced, tossing the broken appendage aside. The green Guardian, circulatory fluid dribbling from a corner of his partially smashed mouth, gritted his teeth, pushed off the ground, winced, and fell to one knee.

"Damn… you!"

He teleported out. Zero recovered his Z-Saber and went on his way.

888

"Thank you, Zero. Colbor meant well… please forgive him."

Zero shrugged. Ciel nodded.

"Well. That's the first time anyone dealt with a Neo Arcadian – much less a Guardian – in hand-to-hand combat."

"Weapons slow me down," Zero stated matter-of-factly, "But the phase blade construct of the saber and rod allow for more efficient elimination."

"Oh… okay then, but please, don't place yourself in danger."

Zero's smile was both reassuring and condescending. Ciel looked at her toes.

"Right. Uh…"

ALARM! Red lights and klaxons heralded chaos. Zero blinked.

"ENEMY TANK APPROACHING RESISTANCE BASE," shouted the static voice of a perimeter guard, "SHIELD CANNOT HOLD. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."

Ciel frowned and yelled above the klaxons, "Zero! I'll evacuate with the others. You approach the tank from behind and try to stop it!"

Zero saluted.

"I'm on my way."

888

They trusted him. Well, _she _trusted him. He emerged from the disposal centre just in time to see the tank fall from the sky and crash land.

"_There must be a weakness, even if it's a giant tank!" _Ciel insisted over intercom.

"I've already found three," Zero assured her. From his vantage point on top an overturned car, Zero performed a dash jump directly over the tank and went to town on his pogo stick, aka the Triple Rod. He bounced off the grenade launcher until it exploded. He bounced off the flying enemies the tank emitted. When those were gone, he landed behind the tank and performed endless spinning slashes on the rear mine-deploying unit. When all three weak points were exploited, the hatch on top opened and a Pantheon wielding a chain gun tried to fend Zero off.

"Silly robots."

Zero continued his assault of spinning slashes, ignoring the energy bullets that scorched his armour until the Pantheon exploded inside the tank, sending the tank's power cells critical.

888

"You killed a tank in thirty one seconds."

"Yep."

"With a pogo stick."  
"The first half, yeah."

"All righty then."

Ciel noted this in her records.

"You're a speed demon."

"Is that my new rank?"

"No, it's a criticism. You didn't take the time to defeat the enemies the tank emitted!"

Zero tilted his head to one side.

"_Eh? _I killed the tank, including all enemies inside it!"

"Nevertheless, it's going against your record."

"You're such a noob, Ciel."

"Speed demon."

"Noob."

"Speed…"

"Excuse me!" Alouette interrupted. Zero pounced the reploid child and gnawed her head.

"You're the biggest nurse cyber elf I've ever seen!"

"AHHH!" Alouette squealed. Ciel clawed Zero off of her.

"Alouette is NOT a cyber elf!"

"But she's miniature and has giant round eyes!"

"You chewed off part of her hair!"

"Yes, and it was delicious!"

Ciel stared at him, patting the poor child mimic who was mimic-sobbing into her leg.

"What did I tell you about cyber elf abuse?"

"Bah! Noob."

"Ugh! Would you make yourself useful and secure the energy crystal factory for me?"

"Why?"  
"We're running out!"

"I can gather more."

"The factory can manufacture five hundred per minute! Now get moving…"

Zero was out the door before she could say "you idiot".

888

Approaching the perimeter, Ciel warned him.

"_Zero, there are sensors which close the shutter to the factory. Be careful."_

"I'm using the ventilation shaft."

"_What shaft?"_

"The one above the main entrance. Didn't your scouts see it?"

"_Um… no?"_

"Amateurs! Zero out."

Inside the energy crystal factory was a study in timed jumps. The yellow construction mechaniloids, which normally threw giant spiked balls at him, were now hover-transporting steel beams across a bottomless pit.

"I guess the resistance can't get in here because reploids can't jump. But what is a bottomless pit doing here? We aren't thousands of feet above ground, and this doesn't look like the Mines of Moria."

He hopped from one moving platform to the other, ducking under soldering irons and smacking away the occasional flying robot.

"I will never understand why reploids incorporate fatal traps into the most basic building design."

Not that he needed them, but he collected the abundance of energy crystals littered throughout the stage. Heck, he had accepted it as his hobby.

"Now what… okay, I didn't expect this."

The top floor was a corridor lined with spark plugs that shot electricity in lethal arcs. Zero used the multi-directional Triple Rod to poke out the ones in the hard-to-reach corners, and pogo'd over the ones on the floor.

"Well, that was easy."

The boss of the area was not. It was pure mechaniloid with eight arms, three elemental attacks and a chain gun. To top it off, the thing floated through the air. Zero relied on his reflexes to avoid its snapping dragon heads, flames, ball lightning and minty fresh breath. As for the chain gun, he kicked off the wall and over the shots, landing charged Z Saber bursts on the thing's round central core.

"Meh, I hate bosses I can't rebuff with smarmy comments."

When it went down, a Flame Chip remained hovering in midair.

"Does anyone know how that is physically possible?"

"_Just take the thing and get back to base," _Ciel ordered over intercom.

"Yes, _mother."_


	7. Bishounen

Zero returned to find the place empty. He searched the guard posts, command centre, energy crystal factory, dormitories, and found no one.

"Okay then."

He took the elevator to the engineering level, and sure enough, everyone was crowded inside Cerveau's laboratory. Uproarious laughter shook the building.

"Where's the party?" Zero demanded, pushing past green uniforms. Cerveau was on the floor kicking his legs into the air. Ciel, wiping tears from her flushed cheeks, was leaning breathless against the computer console.

"Z… Zero. We decrypted another portion of the data you recovered from Maha Ganeshariff. L… look!"

Feeling ridiculous already, Zero elbowed Colbor away to get a better look at the screen. Everyone fell into an expectant hush. There were static, flickering images, and then a video feed began to play from a security camera.

"We think it's from the old Maverick Hunter headquarters," Ciel narrated, "Look, it's you and Megaman X, a hundred years ago!"

Indeed it was. Zero's draw dropped. He had been _much_ bulkier, with a heroic chest and two large green orbs where nipples – or boobs – would have been. Megaman X, the legend he recognized and did not recognize, was looking at Zero's past self and smirking. There was audio, and Zero spoke:

"_Aight, aight. X, you get to do the honours!"_

X reached towards Zero and flicked a switch somewhere inside the engine exhaust he had in place of abdominals.

Zero's boob lights began to flash, accompanied by stereo.

"_I'm blue, da ba dee, da ba dai, da ba dee, da ba dai…"_

X began to dance and sing along.

"_Blue are the people here that walk around_

_Blue like my Corvette it's standing outside_

_Blue are the words I say and what I think_

_Blue are the feelings that live inside me, I'm blue, da ba dee…"_

Everyone was in fits of laughter at the look on Zero's face. The latter picked his jaw up off the ground.

"I HAD A JUKEBOX IN THERE?!"

Ciel tipped over giggling against Alouette, waving at the screen.

"Look! It's my great-great-great grandmother!"

In the video, a fair girl walked into the room. She had greenish hazel eyes and blonde hair. She looked askance at the Hunters before hooting and hollering at their antics.

"Her name's Hannah. I recognize her from my family pictures. She knew you both, Zero, like I do now!"

Ignoring the guffaws and knee slapping going on around him, Zero peered closer at the screen.

"What's that she has hanging off her belt? It looks just like my…"

Ciel reached behind her back, procured a thin metallic cylinder and flicked a switch. A long luminous cylindrical beam, the ancient construct of the beam saber, flared to life. Ciel smiled behind its warm green fire.

"The batteries still work."

Despite the emotions passing over Zero's face, his mouth wriggled into a wry grin. "Those Duracells outlasted _me."_

888

Under the watchful eyes of sentries, Zero walked with her outside, handling both sabers. He waved them around, went through the motions of spinning in midair with one and then the other, comparing them.

"The new one is much lighter than the old and its blade is more aerodynamic. These factors make the new one feel more natural. The old one… your saber, is so heavy and the blade is so thick."

"Your chest _was_ almost two yards wide in that old recording," Ciel mused. Rare and precious sunlight filtered through the oppressive gray sky. Ciel's face became golden white beneath its rays as she stopped to drink them in. Clouds always seemed to hang over Neo Arcadia, the city of sorrows in the distance.

"They exaggerated everything in the old days. You were bigger, your weapon was heavier, and so many mechaniloids were unnecessarily huge. They minimized once energy reserves began to run out. The ones that couldn't make the transition were turned into cyber elves or transferred to cyberspace. That tendency towards miniaturization explains your current human size."

"Take off this armour and I'd be downright scrawny," Zero observed, "Hey, why not?"

Zero stripped his armour right then and there. The cloth tunic fell to the ground. Forearm bracers popped off. He stepped out of his boots. The redhead sentries whistled. Their male counterparts bristled. Ciel gaped.

"Oh… my, but you're not scrawny _at all."_

Underneath the bright red shell was skintight black material that showed a green tinge when the sunlight struck it. This black/green film formed a body suit down to his individual and clearly defined toes. His fingers were deceptively slender; each could crush steel. But more important than phalanges, were the ripped muscles packed onto his wiry frame. His muscles – that were not muscles – undulated with every breath he took, rippling along his arms and chest. The white plastic girdle remained around his groin. Other than that, he was exposed. Zero tilted his head.

"You're staring."

"Sorry. It's a common human reaction to objects of beauty."

Zero inclined his head to the other side.  
"I'm… beautiful?"

Ciel walked towards him. One armour piece remained – his helmet.

"I forgot I had it on," Zero remarked as she lifted it from his head.

Luxuriant golden strands caught and magnified sunlight until a waterfall of gold cascaded around his shoulders. Ciel caught her breath.

"You have bangs."

They stood out from his hairline like a circlet, waving in the wind.

"You would call this body beautiful."

"It was designed to be."

She traced the sharp definition of his arm 'muscles'.

"Wondrous. I know these are servos driven by hydraulic fluid but their look and feel is that of a very… athletic… human."

Zero flexed his arm and the muscles flexed with it.

"I am a human model."

Those wide blue eyes drank him in. She was a child playing with a toy.

"Just how advanced are you?"

Zero accessed his physiology databank and looked down at his plastic girdle, detaching it like a belt.

"I have a dick."

Three things happened then. First, Ciel got a gushing nosebleed, and had to be rushed to the infirmary. Second, the redheads experienced a monumental systems overload and had to be sent to Cerveau for repairs. Thirdly, the male sentries nodded at Zero and said, "Nice."

Zero put his armour back on.

888

On his way to the infirmary, alarms went off in the command centre. Defying the elevator, Zero wall-kicked up the shaft, rushed past the guard and hit the comm. console.

"_Attack… Repeat, under - AHHH!"_

Zero was gone before Ciel entered with cotton stuffed up her nostrils.


	8. Phantom

Dark silence. Two things humans, even after millions of years of evolution, still dreaded. Perhaps they generated electricity against the darkness. Perhaps they composed music against the silence. Zero required neither. He held no innate fears, for he was once dead, but now he was alive, and with a purpose. So it was with anticipation he hopped away from the throwing knives that whistled through the dark silence.

A white skeleton emerged from the shadows, slowly taking the shape of a reploid who held a rather sharp wakizashi in hand.

"I am Phantom, the Shadow General, Guardian of Neo Arcadia."

"Hi, I'm Zero."

"You have defied Master X, and now you will pay for your sins."

"Hi, I'm Zero."

Phantom frowned.

"Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"No."

"Impudent fool!"

"Hi, I'm Zero."

"Graaah!"

Phantom rushed Zero, the short sword flashing white in the darkness. Zero reared back and slammed his saber into the ground, tearing rocks loose with the force of the charged blast. Phantom was sent flying, but the Guardian unfolded a giant shuriken and rode it through the air, throwing knives and then himself at Zero, who performed a half-turn and smacked Phantom aside with a reverse cut. Reeling from his injuries, Phantom admitted, "Your kung fu is strong."

Zero waved at him.

"Hi, I'm Zero."

"_You annoying insect!"_

Phantom clasped his hands and performed a shadow clone technique. Zero sighed.

"You are not Naruto."

He shot the one with the highest energy output. Phantom grunted, leaped upward and threw down a giant shuriken. Zero jumped over it, but the shuriken exploded into four knives on contact with the ground. Zero's leg was grazed.

"Hah!" Phantom gloated.

"Your frontal armour plates are damaged, along with that nasty cut on your back," Zero countered. The Guardian growled and lifted clasped hands. A flaming aura surrounded him.

_Poof_. He was gone. Zero blinked.

"He retreated?"

Throwing knives came from nowhere. Zero got one lodged in his shoulder before scampering out of the way. When the next set of knives flew, he pinpointed their origin and shot Phantom out of his camouflage mode.

"Argh!"

Zero dislodged the knife, grimacing at the circulatory fluid staining it.

"Okay, now I'm annoyed."

Zero went on the offensive, cutting Phantom's sword apart and splitting the silly skull helmet in two.

"My name is not 'annoying insect'. I am Zero."

Phantom glared at him.

"I will not forget it. Enjoy my parting gift."

The darkness lifted as Phantom retreated, and Zero saw the dead reploids littering the factory's entrance. One of them still had their communicator keyed to the Resistance Base…

"This is Zero. A Guardian neutralized the perimeter guards."

"_This is Ciel. Roger that, Zero. Return to base."_

"Not yet."

"_Why? You want some crystals?"_

His optic sensors knew full well what the timer on the upper right corner of the screen meant.

"Phantom rigged the place to explode. I'm going in."

"_There's no time! Retreat while you can!"_

"Ciel, you know damn well that they haven't learnt to set realistic timers on their instant-death traps."

True to his word, he had a full minute to spare by the time he deactivated the final bomb.

"Now, about those crystals…"

"_But you gathered enough!"_

"Think of it as retirement planning."

"_You… you're going to retire?"_

"Not me. You."

888

Ciel was irate when he explained his opinion to her.

"I am _not _running away, Zero!"

"Ciel, you can convert this base into a caravan and escape from here. Take all the energy crystals I gathered and leave Neo Arcadia to me. I don't want you anywhere near this place in case I fail."

"Are you saying you don't need us anymore?" Ciel blurted out. Zero was on the verge of saying yes, but basic programming forbade logic.

"You are the reason I fight. Your happiness is my goal."

Ciel stared into those dark eyes.

"Why?"

Zero did not smile as he said, "Nothing else matters."

Ciel had to look away to hold back the tears. She hated crying in front of him. It made her feel doubly weak to break down in front of one who knew no tears.

"Zero… if you take away obstacles from humans, they cannot grow. Obstacles give humans… give _me _the drive to live. Think about the energy problem. I need to stay _here _and do research so that I can prove to Neo Arcadia that they don't need to retire reploids to conserve energy."

Zero thought this over several million times before replying a few seconds later, "I cannot conceive of a new energy source. Only you are capable of such a thing, and if that brings you happiness, then I will allow you to stay."

Zero walked away. Ciel frowned slightly.

"_Allow_ me?"


	9. Deserter

During his desert excursion Zero passed an abandoned truck, a crumpled tank and a wingless helicopter.

"_Some reploids hijacked an enemy plane and escaped. Their plane went down further ahead. We've sent scouts, but there are hordes of enemies in the area."_

"You call sand snakes and vultures 'hordes'? It's a hundred degrees in the shade and I'm not breaking a sweat with these things."

"_Whatever you say, oh Immortal One."_

"Hey, I like that name. Call me that from now on."

"_Your rank will be 'Crasher' if you consume any more Cyber Elves."_

"Better to be called names than to be called dead."

"_You are so… you know what? Forget it. Just do your thing."_

"It's why I'm here."

Getting rid of some more useless robots and using his pogo-stick/Triple Rod to break some bear traps, he came across a combat-class model styled after an ancient Egyptian god.

"I am Anubis Necromancess the Third."

"What happened to the first and second?"

The doglike robot raised his paws/hands/whatever and two zombie Pantheons emerged from the sand.

"Oh."

Although a master of puppets, Necromancess was no master of combat. He followed a boring routine of sending the zombies after Zero, who cycled through his available chips (there were only two). When Zero had knocked off nearly a quarter of his life bar with flaming Z-Saber bursts (nothing worked better), the robotic mockery of the Egyptian god melted into the sand.

"Phase shifting! Now that's a new trick. By the way, why is a boss in the _desert _vulnerable to fire? You don't even use elemental attacks; just sand; and you're no Gaara."

"Hey, Gaara's my idol!" spoke the voice from the sand. Pillars topped with very non-lethal spikes erupted around Zero and attempted to crush him between. He wall-kicked off and over them with impunity.

"Bah. Let's see you use Sand Funeral, furry."

"I am NOT a furry!"

Necromancess sifted out of the sand and reformed. Zero blasted him with his flaming Z-Saber, again. Necromancess threw his rod at him, again. Zero repeated his attack and Necromancess phase shifted into sand, again.

"This is boring."

After hopping over the pillars again, Zero held a charged Z-Buster until an area of sand began to shift and stir as Necromancess reformed himself. Zero fired the flaming ball into the middle, and when Necromancess became whole again, he immediately shattered. The heat had turned the sand to glass.

"Nooooo!" he wailed, collapsing into the dunes.

"You're melting, you're melting," Zero sang.

"I'll get you!"

Zero gasped and placed a hand over his pump.

"And my little human, too?"

After the angry voice faded, another voice replaced it: a pitiful, thin distress call. Zero followed it to a dropship.

"Oh. I was sure you were another maiden in distress."

The reploid soldier in green was in a sad state, the artificial flesh missing from both his arms and the servo in his left elbow was damaged; he clutched it with his right hand.

"Can you walk?"

"I… think so," the soldier offered, struggling to his feet. Zero turned and waved his hand.

"Follow me."

"Oh, okay."

Zero had not gone ten yards when he heard, "Help me…" So he turned around, and what should be pecking at the soldier but a robotic vulture. Zero shooed the annoyance away, grabbed the bigger annoyance, slung him over his back and told him to hang around his neck. The soldier stammered an okay. Zero made it back to the base's gates in less than two minutes at full speed. A team of medics were waiting there with the guards. The wounded soldier gave a little sigh.

"Thank goodness… I'm saved."

Zero unhooked the survivor's arms, but they both popped out of the shoulders and the soldier collapsed into the dust. Zero blinked.

"Well, that can't be good."

He shoved the arms at a medic, gave the thumbs up, and returned home.

888

"So you've had this Shield Boomerang for me ever since I finished one mission with the Triple Rod."

"Yep."

"Why didn't you give it to me then? I've had to deal with chain guns and Pantheons almost every mission!"

"Because, Zero, I don't like you."

"Why?"

"Remember the pogo incident? Now get out of my laboratory!"

888

"_There should be a hidden base around here."_

There was scorching desert sun that he didn't feel. Sand didn't get into his eyes or clothes. Everything was monitored as blips on his environment sensors.

"Well, there's a quicksand pit, and one of your guys is on the other side, blocking me from going any further. I suppose the sand pit is where this elusive hidden base must be."

Indeed, it was. He destroyed the series of rotating blades that churned the sand around it, and a dark dank shaft was revealed.

"Here we go."

Landing at the bottom, Ciel disabled the electric trap by remote. Thanks to Totten, only softly glowing walls greeted Zero in place of bristling spikes of instant death.

"Question: Why am I killed instantly by spikes?"  
_"You leak?"_

"Fair enough."

The whole underground base sat upon an ice lake, with minimal mechaniloid defenses and traps.

"Found the ladder. You'd think with their technology they would install lifts."

"_Energy crisis, remember? The cause of this war?"_

"Oh, yeah."

Ciel disabled the entrance to the base.

"Another question: if you can find and disable electronic devices by remote, and underground, no less… why do you need _me _to find the place?"

"_Actually, I'm bouncing the signal off your systems. You collect the signal I send and magnify it so that it can disable devices."_

"So I'm a walking transmitter?"

"_Pretty much."_

"You make me feel so… robotic."

"_Hey, do your job and I'll do mine."_

Inside, Zero sniped patrol Pantheons before their infra red detected him. He was inside a prison block, and located the nearest cell, peering inside.

"Ooh, a redhead."

She blinked, standing from her cot.

"Who are you?"

"The manliest robot to ever exist."

"Are you my executioner?"

"An executioner of love, baby."

"You know what? I think I prefer it inside my cell."

Zero broke the locking mechanism.

"Let my people go!" he boomed. She sidled out of the cell, keeping her body against the wall and away from him.

"Uh… there are five more of us here. Okay, bye!"

She ran for it. Zero shrugged.

"I tried."

"_You scared her off."_

"Is that jealousy I hear?"

"_Me? Jealous of a reploid? They're the ones being mass slaughtered to conserve energy."_

"Yeah, good thing you're human, eh?"

"_What's that supposed to mean?"_

"Hey, do your job and I'll do mine."

Sniping the patrol Pantheons so as to maintain his cover, he freed the other six. Disappointingly, some were male.

"Drat. I thought the enemy only kept beautiful hostages."

"Uh… this leads to the elevator to the shuttle hangar," said one of the recently liberated Resistance soldiers, "A boss guards it."

"Okie dokie. Hey, wait a minute! How did you get past all those patrols? You don't have any weapons!"

"We… kept to the shadows? You're the one running around under the electric lights."

"Hah! I hide in the shadows of light."

"Right. Can you help us?"

"Not until the redheads among you give me your phone numbers."

They stared at him. One redhead ventured, "We don't _have _phone numbers. We live in the Resistance base."

Zero rubbed his grubby paws together.

"You're all in my neighbourhood; even better! Well, I'd best save your behinds so I can tap them later."

Zero went through the shutters, leaving the redheads feeling a little dirty. There he found a hulking brute resembling a buffalo caught in a snowstorm.

"I am Blizzack Stagroff, the best warrior of Fairy Leviathan!"

Zero's eyes lit up.

"There's a _female _Guardian? I guess X hasn't turned gay on me, after all!"

"How dare you attribute a human trait to our master! You will now die by my blizzard!"

Being Zero's largest opponent yet, he was also the slowest. The most impressive thing he did was jump really, really high and try to force Zero back with his blizzard cannon. Zero alternated between flaming saber bursts and great balls of buster fire, and the buffalo was soon in pieces. The one saving grace of the battle was the ice chip Stagroff left behind.

"All right, you guys can come in now."

The soldiers filed into the room, and the entire floor shuddered, rising above ground.

"Whoa! Ciel, I thought they were trying to conserve energy!"

"_They need cargo lifts to the hangars."_

"So… they install giant elevators for cargo but utility ladders for personnel. Ciel, maybe the reason behind the energy crisis is downright stupidity."

"_Well, at least Neo Arcadia doesn't float through the sky."_

"Knock on wood."

888

Zero knocked on the door again.

"Come on, baby! I won't do it again!"  
Ciel, as ever, heard the commotion and came over.  
"What did you do to the redheads this time?"  
"Hey, it's my first time socializing, so I just followed the advice in my databanks: 'When in doubt, whip it out!'"

Ciel's jaw dropped and she smacked him over the head with her datapad.  
"Ow! What? Did I do something wrong?"

Ciel walked away shaking her head.  
"It's not my fault they share a room!" he called after her.


	10. Leviathan

Zero was in the desert base again, except someone had melted all the ice.

"_Our server has been hacked from here. Destroy their computer banks."  
_"Ciel, where the _hell _did those two giant, yellow submarines come from?"

"_They were buried in the ice."  
_"Okay… but wait, what is that big 'R' logo? It looks familiar."  
_"Don't you remember? It's Repliforce."_

Zero reeled, memories overriding his command functions.

"_Wait, Zero! Don't fight with my brother…!"_

Zero steadied, forcing his memory buffer to compensate.

"Repliforce."

"_You fought against them with X."_

Zero went rigid.

"… I… r… i… s…"

"_Zero, are you okay?"_

He shook his head.

"Stupid memory buffer is malfunctioning, seizing up my systems."

"_I'll take a look at it when you get home, okay?"_

"Home… a place where only reploids…"

Shaking himself again and switching off the buffer completely, Zero plunged into the depths, navigating under the submarines, shooting down the drill squids and biting fish that infested the area. Emerging behind the second submarine, he jumped onto its deck, leaping over the missiles it fired at him.

"Those sure are some slow-moving warheads."  
_"They _would _be sluggish after being frozen for so long."_

"No wonder they're trapped underground… if they fired on a city, the civilians would be able to _walk _away from them."

Infiltrating the base and sniping its guards once more, Zero found the mainframe and shot it to heck.

"_Good work, Zero! Their hacking attempts have ceased."_

"That was too easy."

Outside the base, he dove into the water but Ciel warned him, _"I'm picking up a huge energy signature! The enemy is near!"_

"I really have to learn to keep my mouth shut."

Sighing with resignation, he charged his saber and walked forward. A glistening blue form glided through the water above him. He stopped to stare.

"Ooh. She's so… smooth…"

"I'll take that as a compliment. My name's Leviathan, by the way, one of the Guardians."

She tossed back her flowing blue locks, treading the water with a harpoon held at her side.

"You know how to communicate underwater using sonic waves. And here I thought you were an old model, Zero."

"I _am_ old, and crusty. Salty, even. That makes me very experienced, with an edge over you."

"You may have defeated that naïve fool, Harpuia, but I am the mistress of _my _element."

"And a fair mistress you are."

She inclined her head.

"Are you making advances on me?"

"Who's advancing? I'm already there," he grinned. She rolled her large blue eyes.

"You've had so little success with women. First Iris, then Ciel, and now me…"

"Iris…?"

She smiled, delighting in his confusion.

"Switch your memory buffer back on; I'm the one who did the hacking, you know. Remember lovely little Iris in her beret?"

He didn't have to switch it back on. It engaged upon hearing her name.

"She was your one true love. I _thought _the Repliforce logo would jog your memory, so I put them there."

"You… planned this?"

"Why yes. The only thing that can defeat you, Zero, is your past. Remember how she betrayed you after you killed her brother? You cut her down without mercy."

Leviathan leveled her harpoon at him.

"I won't expect you to go easy on me just because I'm a woman."

Zero broke out of his trance. His eyes went from black to brown, the colour Iris' eyes had been.

"You could never be as good as her."

She wasn't. Her repertoire consisted of firing homing missiles from her harpoon and leaving spiky ice traps as she swam around. Every time she was within range, Zero blasted her with fire; her obvious weakness. She managed to pull off her super move: a water dragon that followed Zero wherever he went, but Zero just hit the thing with fire and it dissolved into so many useless bubbles. Zero launched after Leviathan, slashing her harpoon in half.

"She may have been naïve, but she was _not _weak."

Leviathan sagged with disbelief.

"I am the new combat series model… I even played upon your memories… how could you defeat me?"

Zero sheathed his flaming saber.

"You and the other Guardians are a copy of X's combat abilities. Only X was my match. How could one fourth of his power stand against me?"

Leviathan giggled.

"Let me go if I give you my number?"

He grinned.

"Deal."


	11. Fefnir

Alouette met him on his way to bother the redheads. Really, what _else _is there to do in a Resistance Base except figuring out how to take down the bad guy (which Ciel was doing) and trying to get laid?

"Zero, there is a problem I need your help with."

Zero broke out of his bouncing gait and snapping of fingers to look at her. She _was _a cute kid, or designed to be, with her wide, innocent eyes and bashful timidity; hugging her little white rabbit for security. She was a doll holding a doll.

"Yes, little imitation?"

"Why do human beings form attachments?"

He sat on the ground beside her and rested a hand on her pretty blonde head.

"Severe, immutable boredom," he explained, "You see, the universe is a vast expanse of nothingness where the most exciting thing that happens is a star going boom. Since their own star wasn't going boom, humans had nothing to do except exist. They conquered nature," he tapped her head with one finger, "and then they conquered science," he tapped her head with two fingers, "but then, oops! They couldn't conquer themselves!" Three fingers tapped, and Alouette giggled, as a child might if tickled. Zero stood up, leaning against the wall, stabbing one finger down the hallway where Ciel's room was.

"You know why Ciel's working so hard to find a new energy source?"

"To help reploids?"

"Nope! It's because she can't please the Neo Arcadian council. See, humans are angry with the lack of energy resources, so they blame reploids, retiring them."

"But won't she help reploids?"

"Aha! Yes, but not unless she helps humans first! The reason humans form attachments is because they're trying to please other people!"

"But won't Ciel please herself?"

Zero sniggered.

"That just sounded wrong."

Alouette feigned ignorance, calculating as she was.

"Kid, humans are the most difficult people to please. Their entire history is glutted with war, especially the last few centuries."

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"There's no pleasing some people. That's why reploids exist, and that's why Ciel works so hard."

"Well… why did Ciel form an attachment to me?"

"Rephrase your question."

"Why does she feel calm, no matter what, when I'm around?"

Zero leaned over the doll and whispered.

"What is programming without purpose? If you had no purpose, you'd end up like Marvin, walking in a circle for millions of years. Your purpose is to depend on her for everything; for energy crystals, for a home, for a _mother. _No other person on this planet… or reploid, for that matter… _needs _her like you do."

Alouette looked straight at him.

"You need her."

Zero gave her a blank look.

"She needs me."

"Rephrase your statement."

"She provides a need."

"Rephrase your conclusion."

"She is all."

Zero blinked, catching himself.

"You sure know how to play tricks."

The doll giggled, squeezing her doll.

"I like knowing what people think. Thanks for helping me, Zero."

She flounced off, skipping with those spindly little legs. Zero tilted his head to one side.

"You're… welcome?"

888

Yet again, there was work to be done in the desert, along the lines of suppressing the invading army that happened to be advancing over the burning sands.

"I'm up against a never-ending barrage of Pantheons and support units? What happened to quality over quantity?"

"_Quit ruminating and hop to it."_

"Sheesh, be a little more dismissive, why don't you?"

Ciel cut the comm. link. Zero unleashed his saber and buster in either hand.

"Hopping to it."

One hand dealt with the front lines, a slash or two destroying every single hostile force he encountered. His other hand shot down stragglers that broke away from the main force. With two hands, he was suppressing the advancing army completely.

"Imagine if I had three."

"_Zero, break through the centre and attack their drop ship."_

"As you wish."

The drop ship in question was a hovercraft that emitted a steady stream of Pantheons and little chicken mechaniloids with bladed wheels. Zero ran up an abandoned bulldozer and leaped, landing on the cockpit. One thrust of the saber and one blast from the buster destroyed the drop ship's pilot AI. He climbed up and ran along its hull, dragging the saber through it while shooting the engines on either side. The ship was in pieces before either of them hit the sand.

"_Zero, the commander's drop ship is approaching!"_

"The last Guardian?"

"_Defeat him and his army will retreat."_

"That's rather silly programming."

"_Nobody has ever defeated him before."_

"You're not very encouraging, you know that?"

The fierce red Guardian landed before him, waving his huge cannon around.

"I am Fefnir!" he shouted, "I have never met my equal in combat, but your defeat of the other three excites me! I want you all to myself, Zero!"

"Gay."

"What?" he yelled, "I am a warrior seeking single combat, to uphold my honour!"

"Still gay."

"Look, I'm not compensating with this giant gun, really, I'm not!"

"You said it, not me."

"I will dominate this battle!"

"Continuing to be gay. What a bore."

Fefnir roared and fired, you guessed it, flames. Zero dash jumped over them and brought down the wrath of god upon the Guardian's head.

"Lightning zaps fire. I win!"

Fefnir staggered, shooting more flames to keep Zero at bay.

"You're more presumptuous than I am!"

"Aww, does that mean we cuddle now?"

"Rrrargh!"

Fefnir charged energy in his free hand, sprung forward and smashed his fist into the ground, causing a shockwave that knocked Zero off his feet. Fefnir leaped into the air, firing at Zero's prone form. Zero countered the fire with a charged bolt and rolled out of the way just as Fefnir punched the ground he had been lying on.

"You're not very fast," Zero critiqued. Fefnir growled.

"Stay still!"

"And let you have your way with me? For shame!"

Energy surged through the Guardian. Another gun materialized on Fefnir's free arm, and he fired both into the air. Fire rained from the sky, sending Zero scampering back and forth as Fefnir turned the desert to glass.

"Hey, hey! Watch the hair!"

Fefnir burst through the curtain of flames. He grabbed Zero, lifted him clear off the ground and pushed the cannon into his spine. The point blank blast sent Zero flying more than thirty feet into the air. In an incredible show of agility, Fefnir jumped _that high, _and grabbed Zero again.

"You're going down!"

Zero curled in midair, jamming his saber through Fefnir's cannon.

"I was delighted to have this dance."

He kicked away from Fefnir before the cannon exploded. They landed, Zero rubbing his back and Fefnir in a sad smoking pile.

"Don't die, Zero!" Fefnir laughed, his arm and most of the armour on his right side missing, "I want to be the one to retire you!"

Zero bowed as the Guardian teleported.


	12. Direction

After chomping a few nurses – Cyber Elves, that is – Zero met Ciel at the command centre.

"Hey, you're up bright and early."

She shushed him, listening to her comm. link. Red alarms began blaring all over the base.

"_Enemies have broken through the front gate! We can't hold them off!" _a guard screamed through the speakers.

"_Just like that?" _Zero sputtered, "After all those missions? After all I've done to thin the herds?"

"They snuck up on the base while you were dealing with the army! It's the Stealth Unit!" Ciel cried over the alarms, and began to cry for real, "It's all because of Neo Arcadia! It's their extreme justice, where peace is maintained by force! Reploids are sacrificed for the happiness of humans. It was I who created Neo Arcadia!" she sobbed, "And it was I who regenerated X…"

Zero's jaw dropped.

"_You? _You must have been six years old at the time!_"_

"I got the plans off Ebay," she confessed, "I used my parents' credit cards!"

"You resurrected X like me?"

"No. It's different… you are the original, meaning you are exactly like what you used to be… But X is…"

The base shuddered as more of it was bombed.

"_Enemies in the engine room!" _Cerveau screeched over the intercom, _"I can't get the elevator to work!"_

"Zero!" Ciel shouted, dashing away her tears, "We have to evacuate everyone with the elevator!"

"I'm on my way!"

He charged past the fallen redheads.

"I will avenge you now, so that you will owe me nookie later!" he called to them as he ran for the elevator shaft. They stirred, groaned, and muttered that they'd prefer death. Falling down the shaft to the engineering floor, Zero beheaded a heavy-arm Pantheon guarding the entrance to Cerveau's lab. The scientist was trembling in the corner, surrounded by shock-stick Pantheons.

"Well, well, well. I thought you were a genius, but look at you, cowering from zombies."

"Just help me and I'll forget the pogo incident!"

After they were in pieces, Cerveau got the elevator running again. A soldier hailed them on the intercom:

"_The engineering room is now clear, but the enemy is concentrated around our energy crystal storage. They might be making off with our supplies!"_

Zero ordered Cerveau to send the elevator for Ciel and the evacuees, preferring to wall-kick up the shaft. Just outside the storage room, Zero saw something small and white lying on the ground. He bent to pick it up.

"Alouette's doll."

A heavy-arm Pantheon charged towards him. Zero held out one hand and caught the big arm, stopping the charge cold.

"_WHERE IS SHE?"_

He smashed the Pantheon like so much rubbish against the wall, using the dislocated arm to score a homerun with another Pantheon's head. He stalked towards the storage facility, the little rabbit held gently in one hand while his other hand crushed metal. Striding through the door, he saw a ridiculous combat model.

"I am Hanumachine, apprentice of Phantom. I will retire you for the glory of the Stealth Unit!"

"Your 'unit' is slag."

Zero looked past the monkey, and there was Alouette, scrunched into the corner beside the energy crystal containers, trying to make herself as small as possible.

"Alouette, switch off your visual and audio sensors until I touch your shoulder."

She obeyed. Hanumachine chattered, twirling his bo staff.

"So, the legendary warrior has a soft spot.

Zero knelt and placed the bunny doll upon the floor.

"You might say that."

He began walking towards Hanumachine, cracking his knuckles.

"But you're not going to feel it."

Alouette reactivated sight and sound when she felt Zero's hand on her shoulder. She stared at the room. Two monkey arms and two monkey legs where sticking out of the walls they had been pounded into. The torso was nailed to the floor by the bo staff. She assumed the red mush with bits of metal poking out had been the head.

"Are you undamaged?"

Zero was covered in circulatory fluid, especially one heel that still had bits of metal stuck to it. He picked up Alouette and gave her back the bunny doll, carrying her outside where it was not so red.

888

After washing up Zero regrouped with Ciel at the command centre.

"Zero… even though you've held off Neo Arcadia _and _its Guardians, we'll never be safe as long as X is around."

"You made Neo Arcadia, correct? Then you have the coordinates to where X is."

"Yes, but their Trans-Server security…"

Their deus-ex-machina floated into view:

"I'VE CRACKED THE SECURITY SYSTEM OF THE TRANS SERVER… I'M SORRY THAT IT TOOK SO LONG… BUT NOW YOU CAN ENTER NEO ARCADIA WHENEVER YOU WANT."

"You… you're the one who gave the Z-Saber to me."

"NOW GO. TERMINATE THAT COPY OF _ME."_

Zero stared at the blue core.

"X…"

It cut him off with a command:

"TERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE."

After it flew away, Zero did something Ciel had never seen him do before: he relaxed. He dropped his tense stance, cracked his neck a few times, and stretched a bit.

"I was waiting for that," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. His eyes melted to a soft shade of blue. Ciel noticed, but instead ventured, "You were waiting for the security to be cracked?"

"No. I was waiting for direction."

888

"_Tell me again how all those missions before didn't give you a sense of direction."_

"Well," Zero responded while hopping around the marble columns, "As you told me _after _I finished them all, you'll never be safe as long as X is around. Those missions were superfluous; totally unnecessary."

"_You saved more than a dozen reploids, and found almost all the Cyber Elves! Although, you did eat the latter…"_

"Anything electronic can be remade. It does not matter if a reploid dies; they can be rebuilt. You resurrected _me, _remember?"

"_Yes, but humans take death personally."_

"What a pity! I could have been finding ways to enter Neo Arcadia instead of tossing energy crystals into the air."

"_You really don't think much of your own kind, do you?"_

Zero paused, pulling his saber from the remains of a gun turret.

"Ciel, did 'my kind' make the world a better place?"

"_Your technology…"_

"Killed more humans than your nuclear bomb."

"…"

Zero resumed stabbing the mechaniloid vermin infesting the Neo Arcadia Shrine.

"_Why did your eyes turn blue after that Cyber Elf left?"_

"My eyes change colour?"

"_History records show that your eyes have shifted colour from black to green to blue and back to black again."_

"Ciel, _why _do you look at all my history files?"

"_I like to research the last hope of the human race, that's all."_

"Maybe my eyes are moonstones."

"_I'm not familiar with the term."_

"Moonstones change colour with your mood. Humans put them on rings. The fad died out around the twentieth century."

"_I'd love to have a moonstone ring…"_

"Okay, I'll gouge one of my eyes out."

"_Eww. Don't be gross."_

"It's not like _I_ need two eyes. I just have the extra one to appear human."

"_What about peripheral vision?"_

"Please. My hair is made of fiber optic threads. I have millions of eyes."

"_Okay… too much information…"_

"Hello, what have we here?"

Two purple reploids were suspended in the middle of a temple.

"That looks awfully familiar."

"_They should. They're clones of the Maverick, Vile, who has been involved with the reploid wars since the beginning. You and X killed him several times."_

"Ah, and now they're two of him. Lovely... I suppose they'll come alive any moment and…"

To his misfortune, the statues took the words right out of his mouth. Grumbling about karma biting him in the ass, Zero unleashed the wrath of his pogo stick as the Vile clones flew around the room. It was simple… he just hopped on their backs until he punctured their jetpacks and they came crashing down onto the spiky floor. After more generic mechaniloids he encountered a clown with three arms, each wielding a beam saber that curved like a scimitar.

"As if my day couldn't get any weirder…" Zero sighed, and resolved to smash the thing with lightning. It went down in an embarrassingly short space of time. Another run past disappearing platforms (physically impossible, but fun) and Zero finally engaged the boss of the area.

"I am Herculious Anchortus."

"Would it KILL you guys to pick an English name? That's pronounceable?"

The Hercules beetle anthropomorph clicked its pincers.

"Our wild appearance and confusing names strike fear into the hearts of our enemies!"

"What about Phantom? _He _has a decent name! _He _gets it! The rest of you are friggin' Latin buffs!"

The beetle thing clicked with menace.

"I serve Harpuia! She likes Latin _and _she's cute!"

"Uh… she's a he."

"What?"

"Harpuia is male."

Herculious turned from purple to gray.

"You mean all this time…"

Zero nodded and grinned at his stupefied horror.

"Oh yeah. You can burn your porn collection and boil your dick now."

"This is so EMBARASSING! I'ma KILL you!"

"Bring it, queer eyes. You already told me your weakness."

Ice laid the Sage low, so ice laid the follower lower.

"Gimme a break. At least Harpuia _flew."_

"Please kill me and erase my shame!"

"Sure, but you know you're gonna come back in the end."

"Damn it!" Herculious cried, and died testily.

888

Neo Arcadia Tower was so uneventful thanks to Totten's magical spike removal technology that Zero looked at the big blobby thing guarding the area and drawled, "You're too big to be a slug. Get lost."

After dicing the thing into its component slimes, Ciel was waiting for him on the other side of the shutter, wringing her hands.

"I'm so sorry, Zero."

"What is it this time, little miss angst?"

"It was I who created the duplication of X. The real X's body had been destroyed during the war, and it would take a lot of time to make a new one because he was so unique. It was easier to create a clone, but the values of right and wrong that I programmed into him became horribly, horribly warped by his sense of justice into extremism."

She was trembling when Zero laid his hands on her shoulders.

"It's not your fault. You did it because you thought it would be good for everyone. Please leave everything to me now."

She looked into his eyes that glowed serene blue. When she spoke, she spoke without fear.

"You are so beautiful in every way."

Tears ran down her pale cheeks. She let him wipe them with one gentle finger, and lift her chin.

He kissed her.


	13. Chameleon

Forward, now. Ignore the minor defenses. He wasn't here for loose change, so he went through that shutter and played with the big boys, stepping into one of their transporters.

"Hmmm… it's that old machine again."

Zero ignited his saber in flames and walked forward in the old shuttle hangar.

"Come on, Stagroff, I have three more of your buddies to play with."

"Hmmm… but we're all here."

Zero stopped short. Necromancess, Herculious and Ganeshariff walked out of the cold shadows. Zero smiled.

"You're saving me so much time."

"Show some intimidation, would you?" Herculious snapped. Zero wagged a finger at him.

"Now, now, don't forget what we discussed about your effeminate boss, little beetle."

Herculious was the first to charge. Zero slapped the Ice Chip into his saber and jumped right over, turning in midair to slam Herculious in the back with frigid force, sending the beetle staggering. Zero drew his Z-Buster on the leaping Stagroff and sent the bull crashing in flames, remembering to duck under Ganeshariff's boomerang tusks and slice apart the zombies Necromancess had summoned.

"There's no sand here for you to hide. You know that, right?"

"Uh…"

"You are the weakest link. Goodbye."

Zero ran at him, firing shots that engulfed Anubis in flame. There was no retreat for the master of the desert, and he was cut three ways apart. Zero then backflipped over Ganeshariff who rolled over the charred remains, receiving an electric jolt from the Z-Buster. Still airborne Zero swung his ice-charged saber to knock the dashing Herculious from the air. He landed in a blizzard from Blizzack's cannon.

"Blow away, Zero!"

"Guess again, Stagroff."

Zero dashed sharply to the right out of the wind tunnel, kicked off the floor and twirled through the air, his ponytail twirling around him like a bright golden ribbon. Stagroff brought the cannon to bear on Zero, but the Red Ripper's spinning body deflected the air and ice all around him, and he twirled relentlessly onward to Stagroff's consternation and decapitation. Jumping off Stagroff's headless shoulders, Ganeshariff crashed into the still upright corpse while he countered Herculious' ball lightning attack with a snowball from his Z-Buster. The arctic beam smashed through the electrical charge and froze the beetle's legs to the floor just as Zero landed in front him.

"Ice defeats electricity, doncha know!"

"Water! My nemesis!" Herculious lamented as Zero relieved him of his four conducting arms. Just before he could remove the superconducting horns, he felt a tremor, and jumped over Ganeshariff as the meat tank rolled into Herculious, squashing the beetle like a… well, you get the idea. Zero shot the elephant anthropomorph in the backside and shook his head.

"You're aren't very original, are you?"

"I can't attack you if you keep jumping around! Rolling fast is the only way I know how to keep up!" Maha groused, picking bits of Herculious from his round shiny belly.

"Well, you're done. I promise this will be the last time stop!"

"The last time wha?"

Zero stretched out his arms and yelled, "THE WORLD!"

The time-space continuum stood still, a dark pall covering the area. He threw the Z-Saber, the Triple Rod and the Shield Boomerang at Ganeshariff, but they slowed to a halt just before his hide, stuck in time like everything else except Zero.

"How can you hope to avoid those?" Zero asked, "But wait, don't talk."

Time resumed. The three phase blades lodged in the reploid's ample circuits, and he spewed circulatory fluid from his trunk. Even as he was losing power from the triple assault, Zero landed on top of him with a bulldozer, leaned back and screamed "WRYYYYYYY!" for the world to hear.

888

"What was that sound just now?"  
"Not sure. Sounded like a rip-off of Dio Brando's shtick."

The Pantheons did not live much longer than that conversation as Zero stampeded out the shutters, gun a-blazing. He navigated the laughable defenses of Neo Arcadia's Core, finally arriving at the next shutter. He popped into one of the transporter pads, emerging on a sunlit roadway.

"I hope you guys didn't… oh _no you didn't."_

"Don't rotate your head and wag your finger at _us_, Zero."

Harpuia smirked, floating with arms folded. Fefnir, Leviathan and Phantom stood around him/her/it.

"I suppose it is more logical to attack me en masse after your individual failures."

"Don't patronize us, Clairol man," Fefnir growled, "I haven't had my full yet!"

"You could always ask Harpuia. His crony had the hots for him."

Leviathan smirked.

"The _beetle? _He didn't strike me as gay."

"He wasn't. He just thought… you know."

Fefnir pointed at Harpuia and laughed.

"I TOLD you everyone would think you're a girl!"

"I am a zephyr! I am a spirit of air! I'm _supposed _to be graceful!"

"Yeah, well, you _could _do something about that lisp. And what's with the arms akimbo? Come back to the land of straight, Harpuia!" Leviathan teased.

"Oh!" Sage Harpuia flicked his hand in dismissal, "Let's just do our job and defend Master X!"

"Defend Master X!" Phantom echoed, feeling awkward and left out during this discussion of sexual orientation. He was supposed to represent a ghost, and the undead are meant to be gender neutral unless you're the kind of person who believes in undead procreation, which is entirely your viewpoint and has nothing to do with Phantom whatsoever.

Zero ducked Fefnir's obvious fireball attack, shooting away Leviathan's homing missiles. Harpuia swooped above, sending a crescent beam arcing towards Zero that he countered with a saber blast. Phantom got in the first hit, taking advantage of Zero's distraction to slice him below the belt with a quick dashing attack. He suffered a kick to the face, reeling as his comrades pressed Zero with more long-ranged attacks.

"Use your throwing star, oh great and powerful ninja," Fefnir yelled above the roar of his Gatling gun. Again, Phantom connected while Zero was busy parrying and dashing out of the way, the huge shuriken ripping through Zero's tunic and lodging in his chest cavity. Zero looked down.

"I just got this new body yesterday! Now look at it!"

He pulled out the shuriken and returned it in kind to Phantom who caught it and rejoined the barrage of the four Guardians.

"We're winning!" Harpuia announced, "He can't hold us _all _off! Now, let the darkness fall, Phantom!"

The latter obliged, and Zero was left in the dark. A fireball flew at him from the side; he saw it too late, and got his shoulder burnt while a homing missile burrowed into his spine. A crescent beam ripped through his already torn chest, and throwing knives studded his helmet.

The legend fell to his knees, his chin touching his chest, his saber clattering on the roadside. The darkness lifted as Phantom dispelled the cloaking technique. Leviathan poked him with her harpoon. No response.

"Let's leave him here for the Resistance to find," Harpuia sneered, "It was fitting I chose the road leading to their little base. Now that they have no hero, we can send our army to destroy them and arrest their leader."

"Agreed," Phantom nodded, bowing out of respect to the inert kneeling figure in the road before joining the others.

"You saw that? I whacked him good!" Fefnir gloated. Leviathan patted his shoulder.

"Well, I guess that just leaves you, since Phantom isn't so big on intimacy and Harpuia has his own issues to work out."

They all looked askance at her, and she giggled.

"Thank you for waiting five seconds."

The four Guardians turned around in astonishment. Zero was there, and yet not there, wreathed in the colours of the rainbow, blending and shifting with the landscape like a…

"That… that technique is the _Chameleon!_" Phantom gasped, "One of the Maverick leaders of the _first_ war used it! I studied it, but never perfected it!"

"How?" Harpuia demanded, "I watched you die!"

Zero, shimmering in the invulnerability of the Chameleon, smiled.

"You forgot the Cyber Elves. Right after I collected the last one on Ciel's list, this little guy called Jackson was unlocked. But, he was _inside_ me the whole time. I believe he is the reason I was not completely destroyed during the Elf Wars. My very own guardian angel… isn't that beautiful?"

"Attack!" Phantom warned, "Attack while he is still weak!"

Zero narrowed his dark eyes, grinning even more, picking up the Z-Saber.

"You naïve children… who told you I was _ever_ weak?"

He ran forward and became air. The Guardians looked about.

"Phantom!" Harpuia shouted, "Use your cloaking techn…!"

_KZASH! _Harpuia fell from the sky, wings clipped. Fefnir unleashed his flamethrower in a wide spray, laying down napalm everywhere.

"Quick, Phantom, before he…!"

_FSHAK! _Fefnir's arm cannon was severed. Leviathan began to twirl her harpoon while retreating.

"Phantom, you must…!"

_CRACK! _Leviathan's harpoon shattered and she was laid flat on the ground. Phantom stared all around him on every frequency his optical and auditory units could muster.

_Nothing._

_KCHUNK! _Zero glimmered out of Chameleon mode, his Z-Saber impaling Phantom's chest and sticking out the back.

"You… are greater than I… I hide in darkness… you hide in light…"

Zero pulled out the phase blade, circulatory fluid misting off it. Phantom shuddered.

"Your technique is strong… I will not let you reach where Master X is! I… will take you with me!"

Zero teleported as Phantom forced his already damaged fusion core to go critical.


	14. Human

To the core! None saw him coming, for the Chameleon was active. He ghosted through the shutters to Area X, the final showdown.

"You can stop playing hide and seek. I can see you."

Zero shook it off, stepping into the light.

"I am impressed. So you are the pirate copy of X."

He was thin, lank in his casual blue business suit with red trimming. His red eyes bored into Zero's dark ones.

"Join me, Zero. As you are a copy of the original Zero, I am a copy of the original X. Zero obeyed X, and so you will obey me."

"Wrong. Ciel told me that I am the original, and I follow no-one."

"Impossible. Your body is different, like mine. Your eyes are not the same, like mine. We share a common mother – Ciel. You will come to think of me as your brother."

Zero held out the Z-Saber in challenge to Copy X. The latter twitched, peering closer. Looming in the background… were his optical sensors malfunctioning? The wrathful ghost of X was glaring at him.

"I already have a brother," Zero uttered, his eyes shining blue. Copy X twitched again.

"You're funny. We end this."

Copy X transformed into Omega X, an Ultimate Armour rip-off with spikes jutting out everywhere. He charged his cannon and Zero charged his sword. They clashed again and again, Omega X always coming out the worse despite his tri-elemental assault. After sustaining heavy damage, Omega X gathered energy in his body and a column of light radiated out of him, knocking back Zero. The damage to his armour was almost fully restored!

"Good grief! You _are _a pirate copy; you use hacks!"

"I do not hack!"

"God modder!" Zero hooted.

"Charlatan!" Omega X yelled.

"Noob!" Zero hollered. Omega X gasped.

"How _dare _you!"

But the end result was the same. The healing did not make a difference. Zero avoided all his attacks easily. They were not subtle, what with the charging before every ranged attack and the obvious bodily motions heralding each physical attack.

"Too weak. Was the original X this weak?"

"Wha… what!"

"I may have lost my memory, but my body seems to remember… that the original X was mightier than you."

"Silence. Now you will feel my true power!"

"Does this mean you're going to become ten times bigger and turn red?"

Omega X leaped into the air, glowing for a few seconds while rainbow lights scattered everywhere and his body morphed. He transformed into Seraph mode, a huge floating main body boasting six wings.

"Oh, I forgot this was the age of angel-winged last bosses... wait… this isn't an RPG! Although I _am _a tad androgynous…"

"Silence, mortal!" Seraph X boomed. Giant columns with a spike on either end fell from the sky and crushed the floor on either side of Seraph X with Zero in the middle, limiting Zero's movement space as the floor fell away leaving a bottomless pit on either side of the small platform.

"Very good. Will you now destroy the world to spite me?"

"Die!"

Searing laser beams caught the tiny platform aflame, but Zero just hopped and clung to the a floating column, smacking the main body with icy charges.

"Ice defeats fire! Or electricity! Or… something."

"Grraaah!"

Seraph X emitted his halo, which fell from above and almost ensnared Zero, but by that time the flames had died away and Zero was able to rush to the opposite column and resume his minty fresh saber blasts. Following the predictable pattern of flames, haloes and laser beams in general, Zero brought down the six-winged angel. His wings and body shattered, Copy X lay there in pieces, half of his head missing, exposing the cheap electronics underneath while his one remaining eye burned red as he spoke.

"I was supposed to be the perfect copy… I was supposed to be… a hero…"

"I just remembered something. He was not as naïve as you are. That's what made him a hero."

"I'll never forgive you. I'll take you with me…"

As the light faded from his eye a red alert was sounded throughout Area X.

"THE FINAL DEFENSE LINE HAS BEEN DESTROYED. SELF-DESTRUCTION MODE ACTIVATED IN AREA X. ALL DANGEROUS ELEMENTS ARE TO BE ELIMINATED."

"It's time to go…" Zero rightly assumed, and ran like hell.

888

For no discernible reason, Zero ended up in the desert. How he managed to reach there when Area X had been at the core of an entire _city, _unless the explosion had caught and flung him hundreds of miles outside of said city, is unknown. He was facedown in the sand, his auto repair functions whirring like mad. The blue core Cyber Elf descended beside him, and projected a hologram of a cool blue X wearing an even cooler lab coat.

"Since you disappeared I've been fighting this war alone against an uncountable number of Mavericks for nearly a hundred years… battle after battle… so painful and so sad… But the hardest part was when I discovered that I no longer cared about fighting enemies… I'll leave this world to you… Please allow me… to rest in peace… for a while… I'm sorry, Zero."

Zero spat out sand and rolled onto his side. He nodded to the hologram.

"You are a synthetic human. You look after your own interests. I never look after my own interests; I always followed someone like Ciel, like you. No robot could stop caring about a cause they believe in, but you were created for _peace, _not war. You have always been more than a robot to me, X. Your very humanness motivates me to sacrifice all for you. That's why we're the best partners."

Zero got to his feet, rubbing sand from his eyes.

"I'll do what you want. When an enemy appears, I'll terminate it!"

Millions of Pantheons appeared before his eyes. Without the Guardians to lead them, without a hero to command them, Neo Arcadia's army had arrived. Zero dusted off his clothes and muttered, "Well, shit."

END


	15. Extra chapter: Bloopers!

BLOOPERS!

888

Zero kissed her. She pulled away.

"You taste like Leviathan."

Zero cocked an eyebrow.

"How do _you_ know what Leviathan tastes like?"

Ciel pleaded the fifth.

"Can I watch next time?" he asked. She slapped him.

888

Ciel was looking through some more history files, and pointed out Isoc, Gate's aide. Upon seeing Isoc, Zero pointed his finger at Isoc's tubular head and exclaimed, "Is that Katamari's King of All Cosmos? Dah na-na-na-NAH! Na-na-na-na!"

888

"Join me, Zero!" Copy X offered, "We are brothers!"

Dio Brando landed on Copy X with a bulldozer, leaned back and screeched, "WRYYYYYYYYYY!"

Zero was hopping mad.

"Damn it, you villain of Jojo's Bizarre Adventures! That was MY battle! MY fight!'

"ZA WAARLDO!"

"Oh, crap."

888

Harpuia played with his Cyber Elf.

"Look at how CUTE my little birdy elf is! You are a cute widdle elf, yesh you are, yesh you are!"

Fefnir turned to the side and puked while the Cyber Elf cooed and rubbed up against its master. Leviathan blinked, holding up her own Cyber Elf.

"Can those things mate?"

"Can we?"

"God, I hope not."

And somewhere, Charles Darwin was turning over and over in his grave at the speed of a jet engine.

888

"I'm here for the girls! And for sweating anime fanboys!" Leviathan struck a sexy pose.

"I'm here for those who solve everything with violence!" Fefnir roared, beating his chest.

"I'm here for those of indeterminate gender and trannies!" Harpuia lisped with limp wrist poised.

"And I'm here for emo kids. And those who like ninjas. I mean, really, _really _like ninjas," Phantom whispered. Meanwhile, Zero whipped it out.

"Touch it. I dare you."

888

Leviathan stared at Zero's package.

"So you ever used that thing on Ciel?"

"WHAT? For Chrissakes, woman, she's FOURTEEN YEARS OLD! I am NOT a pedophiliac, even if human laws don't apply to me!"

"So how many times?"

"After every mission, _including _the redheads, at the same time! You want to ride the Red Ripper, too?"

END


End file.
